Data centers are becoming one of the most important drivers of new electricity demand, capacity planning and onsite generation strategy. This topic explores how large-load growth is changing generation development, interconnection priorities, procurement decisions, reliability expectations and commercial structures. For utilities, developers, EPCs and technology providers, serving data centers now requires faster execution, new supply approaches and a clear understanding of load timing and risk.

Data Center Educational Opportunities

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10:15 AM
  1. 250D
    50 mins
    ERCOT's interconnection process operates differently from the rest of the country. Under the connect-and-manage framework, each project is studied on its own merits under Planning Guide Section 5, rat …
  2. 250F
    50 mins
    Data center energy campus projects are moving forward before load certainty, commercial terms, and interconnection outcomes are fully resolved. Developers and their partners are committing capital for …
11:15 AM
  1. Data Center & New Demand Zone - Exhibit Hall Booth 5004
    50 mins
    Data centers are arriving on utility interconnection queues faster than the grid was designed to absorb them, and the default responses, behind-the-meter isolation or large inflexible load requests, a …
1:30 PM
  1. 250C
    50 mins
    NERC has raised specific concerns about the grid stability implications of large-scale inverter-based resources, and co-located data center BESS deployments are at the center of that conversation. As …
  2. 251B
    50 mins
    AI data center load profiles, characterized by rapid, large-magnitude transients, create subsynchronous torsional interaction risks for nearby synchronous generators that conventional interconnection …
  3. 250A
    50 mins
    Military installations operate under reliability requirements that most utilities and IPPs rarely face: uninterrupted power during grid outages, cyber events, and extreme weather, with no tolerance fo …
  4. 250D
    50 mins
    Enhanced geothermal systems are moving from research programs to operating projects, and the timeline to commercial scale is compressing. This panel brings together subsurface technology developers, a …
  5. Data Center & New Demand Zone - Exhibit Hall Booth 5004
    50 mins
    Interconnection queues, equipment constraints and transmission siting challenges are delaying the large-load connections that data centers and advanced manufacturing customers need on 12 to 24-month t …
2:30 PM
  1. 251B
    50 mins
    As inverter-based resources displace synchronous generation, the inertia and reactive power that large rotating machines provided are declining faster than most grid operators planned for. Synchronous …
  2. 250F
    50 mins
    Co-locating prime power generation at a data center campus, whether natural gas turbines, reciprocating engines, or combined-cycle systems, converts a facility that was previously a minor emissions so …
10:15 AM
  1. 250F
    50 mins
    Power generation and data center construction projects are increasingly competing for the same pool of electricians, pipefitters, welders, millwrights, and commissioning personnel, often in the same g …
  2. 250E
    50 mins
    The electric sector is entering a new cyber-physical risk era. Generation, transmission, distribution, substations, distributed energy resources, data centers, private generation, vendors, cloud platf …
11:15 AM
  1. 251A
    50 mins
    Hyperscale data centers require five-nines reliability while facing interconnection queues that stretch years and permitting timelines that compress development windows. Renewable generation paired wi …
  2. Data Center & New Demand Zone - Exhibit Hall Booth 5004
    50 mins
    As hyperscalers and colocation developers move toward behind-the-meter and off-grid generation at gigawatt-scale campuses, the engineering requirements for onsite power plants have grown substantially …
1:30 PM
  1. 250C
    50 mins
    Hyperscale data center load is arriving on timelines that conventional interconnection and transmission development cannot match. The structural mismatch between when capacity is needed and when it ca …
  2. Data Center & New Demand Zone - Exhibit Hall Booth 5004
    50 mins
    Load growth from data centers and AI infrastructure is compressing the timeline between resource planning decisions and the capacity the grid actually needs. For generation owner-operators managing ex …
2:30 PM
  1. 250E
    50 mins
    On-site generation at data center campuses is growing faster than the decarbonization frameworks designed to govern it. Diesel backup conflicts with emissions targets. Natural gas prime power triggers …
  2. 250B
    50 mins
    Gigawatt-scale AI campuses need more than electricity. They need transmission access, cooling water, fuel infrastructure, industrial permitting capacity and operational resilience, and they need all o …
  3. 251A
    50 mins
    As hyperscalers buy compute from neo-cloud and colocation providers rather than building their own facilities, the electricity behind that compute shifts from the buyer's Scope 2 into their Scope 3, a …
  4. Data Center & New Demand Zone - Exhibit Hall Booth 5004
    50 mins
    Hyperscale data centers need power on 12 to 24-month timelines. Interconnection queues run five years or longer. Meanwhile, oil and gas producers across North America are managing stranded gas, flarin …
9:30 AM
  1. Data Center & New Demand Zone - Exhibit Hall Booth 5004
    50 mins
    Data centers require 99.999% reliability, roughly five minutes of downtime per year. Achieving that with a fleet of reciprocating gensets means procuring more units than the load requires, and knowing …
10:30 AM
  1. 250C
    50 mins
    Supercritical CO₂ power cycles have been in development for two decades. They are now approaching commercial deployment, and the applications relevant to the POWERGEN audience are specific: gas turbin …
  2. Data Center & New Demand Zone - Exhibit Hall Booth 5004
    50 mins
    AI-driven data centers are arriving on power systems as large, largely inflexible loads. They do not have to stay that way. This session examines how a major power producer is working with NVIDIA to m …
11:30 AM
  1. 250C
    50 mins
    AI data centers have more pressure on timelines than any industrial buildout in history. At the same time, gas turbine lead times are a half-decade long, new transmission seems untenable, and it is ha …
  2. Data Center & New Demand Zone - Exhibit Hall Booth 5004
    50 mins
    Interconnection queues in many regions now run five to eight years. Data center campuses are arriving in 50 to 300 MW blocks on 12 to 24 month timelines. The mismatch is a system planning problem that …

Other Data Center News

Visit Our Official Media Partner, Factor This Power Engineering, for more Data Center News

Army offers up underutilized military land to private developers for new power generation and storage

The U.S. Army selected three private developers, including Ameresco, Indelible-Bloom, and Frontier Power USA, to build power generation projects on military bases, enhancing energy resilience.
September 25, 2026

The cloud needs an air permit

Data centers are discovering that diesel backup generators trigger some of the most complex air permitting requirements in environmental law.
September 17, 2026

Baker Hughes gas turbines to support up to 1.8 GW of behind-the-meter data center power

Kodiak Gas Services and Baker Hughes have formed a multi-year agreement for power generation solutions to enhance Kodiak's energy infrastructure, aiming for 1.8 GW capacity by 2030.
July 10, 2026

Brookfield, Bloom Energy expand partnership to $25 billion framework for onsite data center power

Bloom Energy and Brookfield expanded their partnership to finance AI infrastructure projects, increasing funding from $5 billion to $25 billion, enhancing global fuel cell deployment.
July 09, 2026

 

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